New Books in Science Fiction

By New Books Network

Bestselling and award-winning science fiction authors talk about their new books and much more in candid conversations with host Rob Wolf.

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How many episodes does New Books in Science Fiction have?

The podcast currently has 255 episodes available.

New Books in Science Fiction episodes:

December 19, 2017 Becky Chambers, “A Closed and Common Orbit” (Harper Voyager, 2017)
Rob Wolf interviews Becky Chambers, author of the Wayfarer series. The first book, The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet (Harper Voyager, 2016), was originally self-published then quickly picked up by a traditional publisher, garnering numerous accolades. It was shortlisted for, among other things, the Kitschies, a British Fantasy Award, and the Arthur C. Clarke Award. Her second book, A Closed and Common Orbit (Harper Voyager, 2017), was nominated this year for a Hugo for Best Novel and won the Prix Julia Verlanger.
Billed as a space opera, The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet does the unexpected: rather than focus on battles or threats to civilization it offers an intimate portrait of the relationships among the nine members of the Wayfarer spacecraft’s multi-species crew. And with A Closed and Common Orbit, Chambers does the unexpected again: rather than follow the Wayfarer’s crew on a new adventure, it focuses on two of the lesser characters from the first book, offering poignant coming-of-age portraits in a far-flung corner of the universe.
In the interview, Chambers discusses how she creates new species and cultures in such convincing detail, why she decided to place humans in the humbling position of being a minor species in the universe, how being gay informs her sensibilities as an author, and the journey the The Long Way took to publication—from Kickstarter campaign to international acclaim.
Rob Wolf is the author of The Alternate Universe and The Escape. He worked for many years as a journalist, writing on a wide range of topics from science to justice reform, and now serves as director of communications at a think tank in New York City. Read his blog or follow him on Twitter.

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38min
November 24, 2017 Stephen Baxter, “The Massacre of Mankind,” (Crown, 2017)
In this episode, Rob Wolf speaks with Stephen Baxter, author of The Massacre of Mankind (Crown, 2017), the alliteratively titled sequel to H. G. Wells‘ alliteratively titled classic, The War of the Worlds.
Baxter is the author of over 20 novels and dozens of short stories. He’s won the John W. Campbell Award, the Philip K. Dick Award twice, and numerous British Science Fiction Association awards.
Few books (science fiction or otherwise) have had as large an impact on the modern imagination as The War of the Worlds. Since it appeared as a serial in a British magazine in 1897, it has been adapted for movies (at least seven times), comics, television, video games and, most famously, in 1938 for a radio drama by Orson Welles that reportedly caused some listeners, who confused fictional news for real, to panic.
In The Massacre of Mankind, Baxter envisions new technologies adapted from salvaged Martian equipment, the takeover of much of Europe by Kaiser Wilhelm, and, of course, the eventual return of the Martians, now vaccinated against the Earth-bound bacteria that vanquished them the first time.
Rob Wolf is the author of The Alternate Universe and The Escape. He worked for many years as a journalist, writing on a wide range of topics from science to justice reform, and now serves as director of communications at a think tank in New York City. Read his blog or follow him on Twitter.

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47min
October 31, 2017 Julie E. Czerneda, Ed., “Nebula Awards Showcase 2017,” (Pyr, 2017)
Since their establishment, the Nebula Awards have proven a trusty guide to what the next generation will consider a classic.
Take for example, the inaugural award for Best Novel, which went to Frank Herbert for Dune in 1965. Dune‘s impact can be measured in countless ways–not only in the loyalty of critics and fans (who have left in excess of half a million ratings on Goodreads) but in the proliferation of sequels, prequels, movies, TV shows, games, and more.
The 2015 Best Novel winner, Naomi Novik (for Uprooted), joins the ranks of science fiction and fantasy’s greatest authors, including Samuel R. Delany, Ursula K. Le Guin, Larry Niven, Isaac Asimov, Connie Willis, William Gibson, Octavia E. Butler, Kim Stanley Robinson and many more.
But the Nebulas, voted on by the members of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America, recognize more than novels. Award categories include stories, poems, and dramatic presentation.
The abundance of categories and nominees posed a challenge for Julie E. Czerneda, the editor of the newly-released Nebula Awards Showcase 2017 (Pyr, 2017), which anthologizes the winners of the 2015 awards. Although Czerneda had free reign to decide what to include in the anthology, she still had to fit everything within a strict word count.
Fortunately, Czerneda knows a thing or two about getting a book to print. As an accomplished anthology editor and author–her ninth and final novel in The Clan Chronicles series, To Guard Against the Dark, is out this month–Czerneda relished the freedom she had as editor of the showcase.
Every editor gets to put their stamp on it. “I’m the first one to put in novel excerpts for all the novels nominated,” Czerneda says.
Another first for the current anthology: the winners in all the major categories are women. In addition to Novik for Best Novel, Alyssa Wong won for Best Short Story, Sarah Pinsker for Best Novelette, Nnedi Okorafor for Best Novella, and Fran Wilde received the Andre Norton Award for Young Adult Science Fiction and Fantasy. The Damon Knight Grant Master, which recognizes a distinguished career, was C.J. Cherryh.
This year’s editor, of course, is also a woman. For Czerneda, editing the showcase allowed her to celebrate a field to which she herself has made significant contributions.
The publication of her new book, To Guard Against the Dark, marked to the exact day the launching of her career as a writer in 1987 with the publication of A Thousand Words for Stranger. As it turned out, A Thousand Words became the first book in The Clan Chronicles. “Nine books, 1.6 million words later, I’m finishing it,” Czerneda says. “I like to leave possibilities, but I like to get to a good ending.”
Rob Wolf is the author of The Alternate Universe and The Escape. He worked for many years as a journalist, writing on a wide range of topics from science to justice reform, and now serves as director of communications for a think tank in New York City. Read his blog or follow him on Twitter.

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31min
October 19, 2017 John Rieder, “Science Fiction and the Mass Cultural Genre System” (Wesleyan UP, 2017)
A deft and searching exploration of genre theory through science fiction, and science fiction through genre theory, John Rieder‘s Science Fiction and the Mass Cultural Genre System (Wesleyan University Press, 2017) makes a significant contribution to the efforts to grapple with science fiction as a category of analysis and cultural production.
Building on his previous work in colonialism and science fiction, Rieder’s book begins with an assessment of the scholarship on mass culture and the media flows of the early twenty-first century, when science fiction gained currency as a genre identifier. Drawing together analyses of educational curriculum, technologies of publication, and the social production and distribution of literacy itself, Rieder makes the case for understanding science fiction as a social convention familiar to authors, editors, booksellers, and readers, but often the worse for its encounters with the jagged edges of traditional genre systems. Calling on the work of Frederic Jameson, Deleuze and Guattari, Bowker and Starr, and Gary Westfahl, among many others, Rieder traces a history of what SF has meant and currently means, revealing a variety of motives at work in defining and employing the genre.
Allowing his argument to range backward in time to the various texts that have become touchpoints in the arguments about where science fiction began, and forward to the present in tracking the roles of science fiction across various forms of media, Rieder offers an analysis grounded in the social history of texts rather than their formal characteristics. Along the way, Rieder’s work explores and engages the ways that artists and fans have navigated and channeled the shifting ideas about what science fiction is, how we can know it when we see it, and who it belongs to as a literary strategy and a locus for community formation. Ur-texts make frequent appearances in the early going, with a careful reception study of Shelley’s Frankenstein taking pride of place. Further case studies draw insights from the work and experiences of Philip K. Dick, women fans and writers making gains for feminism in the 1970s, and more recent examples of Afrofuturism and indigenous futurism in North America.
Rieder’s book thus creates a “sketch of the history of SF” that shows the genre to be “a product of multiple communities of practice whose motives and resources may have little resemblance to one another” (11), but whose work we would all identify, somehow, as science fiction. Drawing on the fruit of both his forays in genre theory and their thorough exploration in well-designed case studies, Rieder closes the book by offering a new periodization of science fiction that will spur further work into the ongoing ideological power of the genre.
Carl Nellis is an academic editor and writing instructor who researches contemporary American community formation around appropriations of medieval European culture. You can learn more about Carl’s work and request an editorial consultation at carlnellis.wordpress.com.

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55min
October 09, 2017 PJ Manney, “(ID)entity,” (47North, 2017)
Artificial intelligence has long been a favorite feature of science fiction. Every robot or talking computer or starship operating system has contributed to our idealized image of the bits-and-bytes brain.
In (ID)entity (47North, 2017), PJ Manney further expands our vision of A.I. by uploading her human protagonist to a server; from there, he is replicated and downloaded, re-emerging in everything from a sex-bot to a vegetative man.
Published this month by 47North, (ID)entity is the second book in Manney’s fast-paced, plot-twisting Phoenix Horizon series. As the follow-up to the Philip K. Dick Award-nominated (R)evolution, her new novel is both an exploration of transformative technology and a thriller, set in a world where nations (including the U.S.) have collapsed, swathes of humanity face enslavement, and the future of civilization hangs in the balance.
One of Manney’s ambitions as a writer (in addition to entertaining readers) is to prepare the public for the possible impacts of new technology. “If we know that these things are coming, we can start forming opinions about what to do,” she says. “Because here’s the thing: nothing gets banned. [If] it gets banned in one country, it doesn’t get banned in another country. There’s no way that technology stops from happening.”
Manney likens the idea of transforming a human incrementally–gradually swapping cells for bits–to the thought experiment known as Theseus’s paradox, which asks: if you restore every piece of Theseus’s ship with an entirely new piece, is the final result still Theseus’s ship?
“I’m positing, yes it is,” she says, with regard to her protagonist’s transformation from man to super-sophisticated CPU.
While (ID)entity is set in the near future, Manney doesn’t expect that people will be able to save themselves to their hard drives soon. “Uploading is farther off than we think.”
The third and final book in the series, (CON)science, is scheduled for release in November 2018.
Rob Wolf is the author of The Alternate Universe and The Escape. He worked for many years as a journalist, writing on a wide range of topics from science to justice reform, and now serves as director of communications for a think tank in New York City. Read his blog or follow him on Twitter.

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41min
September 18, 2017 Malka Older, “Null States,” (Tor, 2017)
Malka Older‘s Centenal Cycle is set in the latter half of the 21st century and yet, like all good science fiction, it speaks to the current moment.
Null States (Tor, 2017), the second book in her series, builds on the first, Infomacracy, which introduced readers to a near future in which the Earth is crisscrossed by a network of small but stable democracies. But in Null States, efforts to strengthen and expand this world order are threatened by unknown plotters.
What makes Older’s books so timely is that they address some of the most vexing challenges of the Trump era, including the difficulty of separating truth from lies and the uphill effort to foster trust in government.
Drawing on more than a decade of experience working for organizations that provide humanitarian aid and development, Older’s books introduce the idea of mini-nations known as microdemocracies. These tiny states are capped at 100,000 citizens in an effort to ensure that the minority always has a voice. Each microdemocracy can vote for any government around the world, so that coalitions of micro-sovereignties are not massed in one geographic location but scattered around the globe. In a dense city, this means that different microdemocracies can arise every few blocks, with one (for example) under-girded by Rastafarianism and the next guided by the principles of Chabad.
In order to ensure the efficient and fair administration of this system, an organization called Information provides expert advice, education and resources. Older describes Information as a cross between Google and the United Nations. Perhaps Information’s most important function is to constantly stream verified, annotated facts to every citizen as an antidote to fake news, a term that has grown increasingly popular in recent years even though the underlying problem, as Older points out, has been “going on probably for as long as we can trace history and politics.”
For Older, science fiction is an opportunity to explore neither dystopia nor utopia but the real world in between — a place where her policy-minded imagination can explore practical solutions.
“I wanted to show some ideas I’d been thinking about that would improve things in some ways, but they could also make some things worse,” she says in her New Books interview. “There is no perfect system. We’re not aiming to find some system that will work for every case and every country and every group of people and then we’re done. I think what’s really important is the process and the struggle.”
Related links:
* Older’s short story Narrative Disorder and her essay The Narrative Spectrum appear in Fireside Fiction.
Rob Wolf is the author of The Alternate Universe and The Escape. His writing has appeared in numerous publications, from The New York Times to the literary journal Thema. Follow him on Twitter @RobWolfBooks

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40min
September 13, 2017 Ben H. Winters, “Underground Airlines” (Mulholland Books, 2016)
Underground Airlines (Mulholland Books, 2016) is a ground-breaking novel, a wickedly imaginative thriller, and a story of an America that is more like our own than we’d like to believe. In an alternative world, a gifted young black man calling himself Victor has struck a bargain with federal law enforcement, working as a bounty hunter for the US Marshall Service. He’s got plenty of work.
This may sound like a story from the United States of today, but in this version of America, slavery continues in four states called the Hard Four. On the trail of a runaway known as Jackdaw, Victor arrives in Indianapolis knowing that something isn’t right with the case file, with his work, and with the country itself.
Choosing to ignore his past, Victor suppresses his memories of his childhood on a plantation, and works to infiltrate the local cell of an abolitionist movement called the Underground Airlines. Tracking Jackdaw through the back rooms of churches, empty parking garages, hotels, and medical offices, Victor believes he’s hot on the trail. But his strange, increasingly uncanny pursuit is complicated by a boss who wont reveal the extraordinary stakes of Jackdaw’s case, as well as by a heartbreaking young woman and her child who may be Victor’s salvation. Victor himself may be the biggest obstacle of all though his true self remains buried, it threatens to surface.
Author Ben H. Winters, the author of nine novels, grew up in suburban Maryland and attended Washington University in St. Louis. Beyond Underground Airlines, his other works include the highly-regarded Last Policeman trilogy. Winters is the winner of numerous literary awards, including a NPR Best Book of 2013, the Philip K. Dick Award for Distinguished Science Fiction, and the Edgar Award. He currently lives in Los Angeles, California with his wife Diana, a law professor, and their three children.
James P. Stancil II is an educator, multimedia journalist, and writer. He is also the President and CEO of Intellect U Well, Inc. a Houston-area NGO dedicated to increasing the joy of reading and media literacy in young people. He can be reached most easily through his LinkedIn page or at [email protected].

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49min
August 25, 2017 Claudia Casper, “The Mercy Journals,” (Arsenal Pulp Press, 2016)
The Mercy Journals (Arsenal Pulp Press, 2016) is the third novel by Claudia Casper and her first work of science fiction. Set in 2047, it tells the story of Allen Quincy through his journals. Quincy–nicknamed Mercy–is a former soldier struggling with memories of his long-lost family and the traumas he suffered during the third World War.
The story touches on complex issues such as genocide, climate change, and post-traumatic stress disorder. But it’s largely a book about one man’s struggle for survival and his attempt to find meaning in a world turned upside down.
The Mercy Journals won the coveted Philip K. Dick Award, which means it’s destined to be a classic, read for years to come.
Related to the interview:
* Claudia Casper’s essay, “Attending a Literary Award Ceremony in an Alternate Universe,” was published on Literary Hub.
Rob Wolf is the author of the science fiction novels The Alternate Universe and The Escape. His writing has appeared in numerous publications, from The New York Times to the literary journal Thema, and his work has been singled out for excellence by the New York Public Library, The Missouri Review, and the National Council on Crime and Delinquency.

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36min
July 24, 2017 Patrick S. Tomlinson, “Trident’s Forge: Children of a Dead Earth, Book Two” (Angry Robot, 2016)
Patrick S. Tomlinson is a stand-up comic, political commentator, and the author of the Children of a Dead Earth series. In this interview, we discuss the first two books in the series, The Ark: Children of a Dead Earth (Book One) and Trident’s Forge: Children of a Dead Earth (Book Two), which follow the last humans eleven generations removed from Earth as their 10-mile-long spaceship arrives on a new planet.
As befits a man who wears many hats, Tomlinson’s books are not easily categorized, mixing mystery, science fiction, cultural commentary and adventure. The third book in the series, Children of the Divide, is due out in August.
Rob Wolf is the author of the science fiction novels The Alternate Universe and The Escape. His writing has appeared in numerous publications, from The New York Times to the literary journal Thema, and his work has been singled out for excellence by the New York Public Library, The Missouri Review, and the National Council on Crime and Delinquency.

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42min
July 20, 2017 Linda Nagata, “The Last Good Man” (Mythic Island Press, 2017)
In The Last Good Man (Mythic Island Press, 2017), Linda Nagata uses a brisk and bracing writing style to immerse us into the lives of private military contractors, in the near future. The team, basically moral individuals, work in conjunction with individually guided, robotic weapons and surveillance equipment. If Katheryn Bigelow, the director of Zero Dark Thirty, wrote a speculative fiction novel, it might be something like this. Wasting no words, the story stays right on track, concentrating on army veteran True Brighton as she and her teammates undertake a dangerous mission, which wakes old wounds.
For True, painful memories of her son’s death resurface, while her boss, Lincoln, must come to terms with a past decision he made for the greater good of the unit. True’s anguish and her questions about right action are absorbing and affecting. On another level, the story works as speculative fiction, inviting us to consider a future where AI combat replaces human soldiering more and more. The point of direct AI involvement is to spare the lives of soldiers, but as the novel shows, that goal isn’t always as simple as it sounds.
Gabrielle Mathieu is the author of the historical fantasy Falcon series (The Falcon Flies Alone, and the upcoming The Falcon Strikes.) She blogs about travel and her books at http://gabriellemathieu.com/. You can also follow her on Twitter @GabrielleAuthor.

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42min

FAQs about New Books in Science Fiction:

How many episodes does New Books in Science Fiction have?

The podcast currently has 255 episodes available.

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